Innocents Abroad argues that France should be removed from the UN Security Council and replaced with Japan. (This is similar to Friedman’s argument that France should be replaced with India.)
This is actually a very good idea in a number of ways. First, it acknowledges that Japan is now a stable and democratic state, and worthy of being a member of the P-5. Second, it would help create a more balanced P-5 membership by providing for a democratic Asian nation to have representation.
If France can’t act like a responsible member of the international community, we should find someone who will.
Ultimately, it comes down to the Muslim world wanting some sort of veto representation among the 5. If Turkey gets sufficiently Westernized, that might be a better candidate than a radical-Islam-supporting-appeasing France.
#1- I don’t know how good a choice Japan would be. I think that the decision of who get’s veto power should be based in part on population- which would make India a more logical choice. Japan has also proven in the past decade that their democracy isn’t as strong as we thought… they can barely keep an administration in office for two years (Koizumi, who was initially so promising, is starting to look washed up…)
#2- Why is everyone turning the Iraq issue into a binary, black and white argument? Are appeasement or blitzkrieg our only choices? We’re a much more creative and humane species than that… at least I hope we are, or we can’t expect to have much of a future ahead of us…
The only way to remove a permanent member of the Security Council would be to create a new security council, it seems to me. The only way to do that would be to abolish the UN and create a “UN 2” or “League of Nations 3”. That would be more trouble than its worth.
Ultimately, France must act responsibly. If it compounds its errors on Iraq with even more grievous errors in the future, the UN maybecome paralyzed into inaction, like the old League. That would be prelude to the end of the UN. As horrifying as that is to contemplate, that is the fire France is playing with.